With the job market going down the tubes, professionals across the board are looking for things to do with their time. Those who once enjoyed six-figure salaries are now volunteering their time to help those in need. One example are lawyers, a profession traditionally thought of as being particularly "money-hungry."
CNN.com looks at one such example of legal largesse, following the story of David Dineen, who had been earning well over a hundred thousand dollars a year working for a prestigious law firm in Massachusetts. But when the economy went belly-up, his boss didn't fire him. Instead, he gave David the chance to work for the Greater Boston Legal Services.
Throughout the United States volunteer organizations or organizations designed to help the less fortunate have been struggling to find qualified people to work for them. Now, with so many in trouble and looking for work, any work, they are finding more people than they know what to do with. Dineen took a huge pay-cut, but he now continues to practice the career he went to school for while also helping people who really need it.
It seems that this trend his particularly prominent in the legal field. The United States has led most countries in producing lawyers. Law firms began hiring those graduates during the boom times, and apparently grossly overestimated their future needs. With the economic slowdown many of these professionals are suddenly without a job.
Still, this is a lesson that could be applied to just about any professional career. There may be work similar for accountants and technology people. Just because you may not be making the huge salaries you were before doesn't mean you have to give up or can't use your time to help your community.